


Selfless

by saturnrising



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 06:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4776575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnrising/pseuds/saturnrising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response to Selfish by FireDancer. Steve didn't intend to send his letter, but it got there anyway.</p><p>Original fic here:  http://archiveofourown.org/works/4760777?view_adult=true</p>
            </blockquote>





	Selfless

**Author's Note:**

> Before reading this fic, please read Selfish by FireDancer. Selfless is a direct response to it, and doesn't make any sense at all without it.

When Steve woke up after his procedure, the procedure to make him strong again, to redo what Rebirth had wrought, an envelope was waiting under his hand. It had been filched from the gift shop, nothing that anyone of Steve’s acquaintance would have ever chosen… it was a pale blue, with a mesa and cactus motif in the lower-left corner of each page. The rest of the box was resting on the table, and the window was left slightly open, as if someone had come in, gotten the stationery, and wrote the letter in that room, before stealing into the night.

The envelope itself was addressed simply enough, with “Steve” written in an unmistakable hand in the upper right. The handwriting was tight, half cursive and half print, some of the letters only half-realized, open loops and meandering lines. The same handwriting that got Bucky’s knuckles rapped by the nuns, written as if he had too much to say to focus on making sure he stayed in the lines. It looked like it had been neatly folded once, and carefully placed in the envelope before the envelope was sealed, and then was opened once, the letter hastily crammed back in.

_Steve,_

_I’m sorry for leaving the way that I did. I didn’t explain… I couldn’t explain myself. But it wasn’t because of anything you did, or anything you said, I want you to know that much._

_I don’t want you to take offense at why I did, or take it on yourself… you always did that too much. I remember someone always saying that you thought it snowed in winter because you didn’t try hard enough to keep it warm year round. I just want you to know that I needed space and time, and it wasn’t because of you._

_I needed to get myself together. I’m not all the way there yet, not even close. Hell, I don’t even know if that’s on the table at this point, but I could feel in my bones what would happen if I stayed. I could see you, trying to remind me, heart breaking every time I couldn’t pull my mind back around, promising to stay and help me even if I proved beyond help. You’ve always been selfless like that, no matter how selfish you said you were in your letter. You’ve always tried to take everyone’s burdens, working even when you’d be in bed coughing up blood, picking fights even when you knew you couldn’t win… I even remember you enlisting over and over again, even when your asthma disqualified you from the service. I think I remember telling you that they’d arrest you eventually for lying on your enlistment paperwork, but you didn’t care even if you did get arrested. You were determined._

_I always admired that about you. But it wouldn’t have helped me… I know you’d never give up on me, nobody that was that kind of quitter would have ever broke into a HYDRA facility just to get me off one of their tables. I remember some of that, but most of it I know from the Smithsonian. I broke in there before I came back. You wouldn’t have turned me away, or gotten frustrated and left me, but you can’t put my mind to rights… only I can. It’s not fair to ask you to do that._

_Like I said, I’m not all the way there, but… I’m better now. It’s not as hard to talk, and I don’t lose words as easily. What’s left of HYDRA is after me, but that’s not really a surprise. I’m not their fist for nothing… I’m good at not being found when I don’t want to be.  
I’m glad you remember who I was before. I still don’t… it’s hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. Whenever I look in a mirror, I don’t know what I’m expecting to see, but it isn’t this. Sometimes I wake up and feel like my whole left side is numb, and it scares me when I see the arm. Sometimes I see lights and I go cold all over, like I have to fight in order to keep what I have of myself. And sometimes I lose myself anyway, like the parts of me that I’ve found so far just evaporate and I’m just left moving through the motions, and it takes me awhile to catch up that something is wrong. And then I get upset, and usually break something and have to move on so nobody catches me._

_I can’t believe I’m about to admit this, because I know you’re going to be mad, but… you know what brings me back to myself every damn time? It’s you._

_When I get scared that I’m going to lose everything I’ve fought to put back together, it gets hard to breathe, and when I stop to catch it, I hear a voice in my head… it says, “Nice and slow. In… and out… In… and out… cough if you gotta, just follow along.” And I close my eyes and do that, and I see you in front of me, short this time, breathing with that voice. And I breathe with it too and then I start to calm down and remember that that’s how I got you back to breathing, every time, because there wouldn’t be a world for me if you weren’t there with me. Cause… you see… hell with it, you almost died. I love you too. HYDRA had to do what they did to me to get me to comply, because I was never theirs. I was always yours. And I always will be._

_I’ve loved you since we were kids, since before I even knew what love meant. I know that, just like I know I used to kneel in church every Sunday and pretend to pray along with the priest and beg God as hard as I could to just let you stay on Earth, not to take you away from me, I needed you too damn much where you were. I promised I’d do whatever I could to take care of you if God would just let you stay with me… even if you didn’t feel the same way, or didn’t ever want to dance on that side of the ballroom, it didn’t matter. I’d promised to take care of you, and that’s what I was gonna do. It’s funny I should mention church, actually… a few weeks ago, I stopped in to one. It felt familiar… I went to Mass, but I didn’t take communion. That felt weird. I did, though, go to confession after, and I told that priest everything. I told him I was the Winter Soldier that was on the Internet. That I’d killed a lot of people in the war, and then after. And that I’d abandoned someone I loved. And you know what that priest said to me?_

_He told me, “Son, anyone who’s seen the files on what you’d been through knows better than to think you’re at fault. And God wouldn’t punish you for the sins of those that have sinned against you. However, love is God’s greatest gift to man, the most transformative power in the universe. I’m sure God understands why you did what you did, but you better make sure your lover does, too.”_

_I felt better after that. I still feel… you don’t want to know how I feel. I don’t know if I believe there’s a God, really… I think it’s been a long time since I was sure, if I was ever sure. But I do know a couple things, and one of them is that no matter what I’ve done, no matter if I get the firing squad or the chair (I don’t know which they do now), for however much time left I got, it’s going to be with you. Because, you PUNK, you should have said something a long damn time ago… I had no idea, and then you went on and started chasing that agent dame at me… she was a class act, no doubt, but damn if it wasn’t a spike in my heart. I saw some pictures of you and her at the museum. Always posed, nothing special, and I remembered thinking, “Lady, you better be damned grateful that I prayed so hard for your sweetheart to stay alive…” You never would have had a thought like that no matter what dame you saw me dance with. You would have smiled the way you do when you’re sad, and then tried your hardest to be happy that I looked happy. So don’t start on being selfish, you don’t have a selfish bone in your body._

_Anyway, that’s not important. What is, though, is that I’m glad you reminded me of that old fortune teller, the one that said I’d marry a beautiful blonde, but I wouldn’t wear a ring. I remember being angry for awhile, cause I thought that by “marry” she meant kneeling in front of the church with a dame in white lace next to me, and that wasn’t what I wanted. But… I also remember another time, thinking about it, when we were on the march in Germany back to base? I made you take a couple hours’ sleep after you skipped your turn four times, and when you finally dozed off, I realized what she’d meant. That I’d pledge my life to a beautiful blonde, but I’d never be able to wear a ring. That when the war was over, maybe I’d be able to tell you, somehow, and we’d find ourselves some kind of bachelor situation, maybe move out West, maybe start over somewhere new, and then it’d just be you and me till the end of the line. Or find a couple dames that were in our situation and make a few arrangements…_

_I guess it wasn’t supposed to be this way for either of us._

_No matter what, though… I’m still with you ‘til the end of the line. I hope you do forgive me for pulling a Houdini on you while you were sick, because I’m having a hard as hell time forgiving myself. If you do… I won’t be far._

_Love,_

_Bucky_

 

And in a hastily scrawled, barely legible addendum, added so quickly the ink smeared, underneath that…

**_GODDAMN IT STEVE WAKE UP I’M UNDER YOUR GODDAMN BED._ **


End file.
